Golden Tube amps


These look interesting to me and have some good prices. Anyone have some opinions on these? Reliability? Sound quality such as sound staging, detail and of course realism. I have never owned tube, so don't know the problems that come with tubes in general.
r32657

Showing 1 response by jeffreybehr

Yioryos: "I guess Audio Outlet knew inside information."

...or they simply advised their customers to stay away from equipment of marginal reliability.

Zosima: "Another useability concern is that it is somewhat of a pain to bias. It has to be turned over and the pots are too sensitive and requires use of long plastic screwdrivers."

Does that ever sound like my Chinese-built New Generation poweramps (see My System). First disconnect them, get a couple towels for padding, remove the bottom covers, and reconnect the speaker cable. Each of the 8 pots in my 2 amps seem to have different friction, and they all have FAR too much range, so it's too much, then not enough, then too much...

Their good points? They were quite inexpensive, they're attractive, they're easy to work on (to upgrade), they have a triode switch, and they sound quite nice. I've replaced all the HV PS 'lytic caps with bypassed Solen 'propylenes, replaced the coupling caps with NorthCreek Harmony 'propylenes, and replaced the cathode-ground (IIRC) resistors with Mills NI 12W. wirewounds. Pics are at http://community.webshots.com/scripts/editPhotos.fcgi?action=viewall&albumID=278066578 .
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